Talk:Greenlight

This article was nominated for deletion. Please review the prior discussions if you are considering re-nomination:

Keep, 28 April 2023, see discussion.
no consensus, 1 May 2012, see discussion.

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Greenlight applies to the TV industry as well

The article should be improved to apply to it's wider usage in the Television industry as well.-BiancaOfHell 00:45, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I added "and TV", but didn't change any of the movie-specific language ("principle photography") that followed — Wikipedia does not seem to consistently have equivalent articles for aspects of TV production.

Also snipped the following, which had been appended below the categorization:

Green Light is also an international Colour House, manufacturing and distributing Professional quality hair dyes and related products. The UK distributor, The G & C Company, is owned and run by John Gavin.

If this is notable (and I said if), it should have its own article. / edgarde 15:38, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Parody

In the Rocky and Bullwinkle movie, a literal huge green light is shown... AnonMoos (talk) 12:38, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is it really necessary to point out that the movie Rocky and Bullwinkle was unsuccessful? Nels Beckman (talk) 18:16, 13 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is not a dictionary

Can this article ever be more than a glorified dictionary entry? The term is a common one, not unique to the film or TV industry. It is used in multiple contexts in the same way... review and approval to proceed with something.

We can list all sorts of examples... but these do not really expand on that basic definition. I am thinking that this belongs at Wiktionary, not here. Blueboar (talk) 15:15, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You are right, but some people want to create an article for every grunt they've ever heard uttered. Not enough time reading books, too much awe of lingo. Another fun aspect of WP is that they don't even check to see if they're spelling the term correctly before titling the article. Eric ^talk 03:44, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If you've ever actually looked carefully at encyclopedia articles, you'd notice that this one qualifies rather easily. Sure, the article is short, but it goes beyond the basic definition, gives a quick origin reference and provides context--something dictionary entries rarely do. In fact, the banners are incorrect--there is no Wictionary entry. Alex.deWitte (talk) 06:56, 23 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Have changed the article title so that it uses the noun form of the phrase (green light) rather than the verb form (green-light). The topic may not be any more notable, but it should mean that the article is more encyclopeadic. Note that the noun form has no hyphen. "Film and television" was inserted for the sake of disambiguation. Pololei (talk) 10:38, 24 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Remove article because it's a jargon term that can be replaced by another word

The article is about a jargon term that can be replaced by another word, the type of jargon that the style manual advice is avoided. There might be terms that can be considered jargon that warrant an article but a term for approving production doesn't warrant an article.—The pages that link here should replace the word with "approved" or "produced" to avoid this term.--John S. Peterson (talk) 05:44, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"Green light" is a common term in the industry, especially when you're talking about Development and Pre-production. In fact it is the most common term for this specific meaning. Producers and screenwriters talk about getting a "green light". They don't use "looking for approval" or other generic phrases. The language is full of terms that could be replaced by another word. That doesn't mean those terms should be deleted from encyclopedias. There were dozens of articles that used the word and link Green-light until John S. Peterson suddenly removed them today. That indicates multiple other editors found the term to be appropriate. - Gothicfilm (talk) 02:03, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Verb Tense

Is the past tense of "green-light": "green-lighted" or "green-lit"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.246.15.52 (talk) 18:34, 3 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I strongly prefer green-lighted. “Green-lit” to me implies lighting a scene with green light. A traffic light doesn’t illuminate much. The meaning of the image is a signal, not a floodlight. MJ (t • c) 00:03, 4 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Greenlight

It should be clarified and or decided whether the pages context is about Green light(Film making) or Green light (Traffic Signal)

It's borderline WP:DICDEF, so shouldn't even be here to my mind. --Rob Sinden (talk) 08:20, 16 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I came here to see if there was a discussion about this. Glad its been narrowed to the film meaning, but other meanings section still gives it evidence for DICDEF. Might be more suitable for List of film terms. —Ost (talk) 18:23, 7 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Correct spelling is "greenlight"

This article was created at the correct spelling and then User:Eric inexplicably moved this to the wrong spelling in 2010.

A quick check of Google with a site: operator confirms that all four major entertainment industry websites use "greenlight," not "green-light": The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline, The Wrap, and Variety. I recall quite clearly in the 1990s (when THR and Variety were still print publications) that "greenlight" was prevalent back then, too.

Any objections before I move this back to where it belongs? --Coolcaesar (talk) 05:15, 21 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I object to the article's existence. It is a ludicrous notion to have an encyclopedia article for this term. Such articles diminish Wikipedia. See the above discussions.

My move might be inexplicable to some, until they look it up. This compound verb construction clearly calls for a hyphen. One source among many: Hyphen (-) | Oxford Dictionaries Eric ^talk 14:07, 21 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You are reading the American Heritage dictionary wrong. They use interpuncts to mark compound words. For example, look at the entry on flashlight. Also, if you read that dictionary entry carefully, it's clear that they prioritize the version that elides the hyphen. American English is traditionally more aggressive at eliminating hyphens in compound words and more conservative in preserving periods in abbreviations. The term is most commonly used in the American entertainment industry and should be spelled in the American way. I will need to revise the article to reflect that this is an American English term.

Also, if you had read up the Wikipedia articles on filmmaking -- or even better, a textbook on the subject -- you would be aware that very few other economic sectors experience such sudden transitions from dribbling out little bits of money in development hell for years and years to suddenly pouring hundreds of millions of unrecoverable dollars down a rat hole within two to six months, in the hope of getting back a much bigger gusher of money from the box office a year later. That's why greenlight power is so notable and so jealously guarded. With most products and services, it's possible to start small and slow and pull the plug fast if nothing works. With today's blockbuster films, greenlight means granting a production team the right to spend a huge amount of money that can't be clawed back no matter how bad the final product is. Now that I think about it, that key point really should be in the article to explain why greenlight power is so important in the entertainment industry. I will have to look out for a good source and put it in after I finish my in-progress and long-delayed expansion of the UCLA School of Law article.--Coolcaesar (talk) 03:48, 4 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I know about the interpuncts. I just don't see use of the term as having become prevalent enough that we dispense with the hyphen. But of course that's subjective. No big deal anyway-- as I said above, it's a silly notion for an encyclopedia entry. As for the economics of getting films made: I don't think I made any comments on that topic, so I'm not sure where you're going with the conjecture regarding how much I've read about the industry. Eric ^talk 16:15, 4 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

"Prevalent enough?" Go talk to someone in the industry or read the trade papers sometime. The term has been prevalent for almost two decades.

Also, it's the economics that explains why the term is so important. Dismissing the term as "silly" implies a complete lack of understanding of the economics involved. Kelly C. Crabb wrote a book that explains how it is a brutal winner-take-all market. Very few other economic sectors have such cruelly unequal distribution of revenue between winners and losers.

Most people don't have the time, interest or energy to watch more than a few dozen films each year, and they're often balancing that against television shows or video games. And the number of feature films made each year is usually around several hundred, which necessarily implies that the majority will become box office bombs because no one can watch all or even most of them. The awesome responsibility that comes with greenlight power is to keep the studio's products from ending up in the box office bomb category. --Coolcaesar (talk) 20:01, 1 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Move to nominal form

Pololei, now that you have re-titled this article, it might be best to change the intro sentence to use the term as a noun. Eric ^talk 13:46, 24 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

CambridgeBayWeather, could you let us know why you reverted Pololei's move? Only asking out of curiosity, as I don't think the article should exist in any case. Like Headlight flashing and Death threat, it just makes serious visitors less inclined to take us seriously. Eric ^talk 14:21, 24 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

There was no discussion here that a long standing article should be moved. If you think it shouldn't exist then nominate it for deletion. It was once before, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Green-light, but was no consensus. I'm not bothered if it stays or goes. A lot shorter but not really any worse than a lot of other odd articles. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 14:30, 24 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, CambridgeBayWeather, so it was the lack of discussion before the move, that makes sense to me. I noticed only after I pinged you that the mover had announced the move, after the fact, in an old thread above: Talk:Green-light#Wikipedia_is_not_a_dictionary. Pololei, it's probably best in most cases to create a new section at the bottom of the talkpage and announce your proposal or intention before the move so that any watchers have the chance to give an opinion. Eric ^talk 14:48, 24 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

CambridgeBayWeather, if you'd explain why you disagree with the page move, this would be appreciated. Neither an absence of a discussion nor an article being long standing prior to a page move is, of itself, sufficient reason for reverting. Your edit summary says, "over redirect: restore", which I don't understand. Pololei (talk) 20:49, 25 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

If an article has been at a particular name for several years then a discussion of the move should take place. The edit summary actually says "CambridgeBayWeather moved page Green light (film and television) to Green-light over redirect: restore". The word "restore" was mine and short for restore to original name. The rest is the default edit summary. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 04:24, 26 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

That makes no sense at all because a discussion did take place above. You just didn't bother to read it. The point was that the article was improperly moved 10 years ago by someone who has no understanding of the subject and clearly hasn't spent enough time working in Los Angeles. So it was entirely pointless to revert User:Pololei's move back to the correct title. --Coolcaesar (talk) 03:58, 12 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Planning to proceed with moving back to the correct title

I still haven't seen any good reasons presented for why this article should not be at the correct title, "greenlight". I'm planning to proceed in a few days with moving this to the correct title.

Also, if you look at Google Ngram Viewer, it's clear that greenlight and greenlighted have become quite common terms in the English language since 1990. Coolcaesar (talk) 17:14, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

These Ngram diagrams are interesting. And no Ngrams found for "green-light", at all. But both Merriam-Webster and the Cambridge Dictionary have it as "green-light" or "green light". But then Collins has it as "greenlight". A Google search for "green-light" returns 51.4 million results, "greenlight" only 16.8 million. Hm, what now? -- Evilninja (talk) 16:16, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If you look at those Google results, a lot of the "green-light" results are actually "green light" results.

The larger underlying problem is that British English is slower than American English when it comes to losing hyphens or spaces in compound words. Take a look at Ngram Viewer's results comparing "trade mark" to "trademark". If you then hit the drop-down menu to limit the graph to different corpuses of English, the difference is very clear: trademark did not become ascendant in British English until the 1980s, two decades after American English, and trade mark is still in common use in British English, while it became quite rare by the 1980s in American English.

Anyway, the point is that greenlight is a predominantly American English term because it's used in the American film industry. So this article title should reflect what's in common use. --Coolcaesar (talk) 18:40, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 20 April 2023

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved per request. Favonian (talk) 20:39, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Green-light → Greenlight – This article was created with the correct title "Greenlight" on 12 September 2004. In violation of MOS:RETAIN, User:Eric improperly moved this article to "Green-light" in 2010. The term "greenlight" (as a verb) is most commonly used in American English and has not been hyphenated in formal written America*n English for at least four decades. I already raised this issue on the talk page in 2019 and no one has defended User:Eric's clear violation of MOS:RETAIN. It's time to move this article back to the correct title. Coolcaesar (talk) 18:16, 20 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Re my "improper" and "inexplicable" move: See above. I un-watched (or...unwatched??) this "article" years ago, as it cannot be taken seriously as an encyclopedia entry. In a world where the above-invoked American film industry employs lamentable constructions such as "You need to" and "I need you to" in virtually every production, I don't see any point in promoting proper English usage here. In the context of today's Wikipedia, I see no reason not to greenlight Coolcaesar's desired spelling of this dicdef. Eric ^talk 03:08, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Support in using North American English form over British Form as the original form of English used in the article naming -- 64.229.90.172 (talk) 17:51, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Wikipedia is not a dictionary or phrase guide, and this article does not seem notable. Redirect to Green Light as a soft deletion. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 16:45, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
- The edit history should be restored to the proper ENGVAR/RETAIN title before conversion to a redirect, if that is the outcome -- 64.229.90.172 (talk) 03:52, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I believe the correct spelling is greenlight, not green-light. InfiniteNexus (talk) 16:21, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.